Co-organizer Michelle Fetsch of Women Enough celebrating a successful event with Adriana Dakin of ImaginePod, which did pro-bono work in social media, media outreach + more.

On December 1st, San Francisco was one of the sites of the first-in-history TEDxWomen events taking place around the country and the world on that day. Through ImaginePod, I helped to produce the event together with a crack team of women — Michelle Fetsch from Women Enough, Sonya Stewart from Living Rhythms, Sabrina Bruning from Women2.0, and Liz Zirk from Young Women Social Entrepreneurs, as well as a team of volunteers on the day-of. [click to continue…]

Include both highs and lows. Don't delete unsavory bits. Keep it real. People are fascinated with personal stories! What story do you want to tell?

We’ve all seen at least one. A movie based on a real person’s life. A biopic, they call it in Hollywood. I can think of a handful of recent films scripted and based in reality.

Erin Brokovich. The Social Network. 127 Hours. The Blind Side.

And you know these movies by name, even if you haven’t seen them, because they garnered Oscar attention and had pretty famous actors in them. Julia Roberts won her Oscar for Erin Brokovich. So did Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side. And who doesn’t know that The Social Network is about Facebook?

All of these movies are big Oscar heavyweights and millions of people around the world love these movies BECAUSE THE STORIES ARE REAL. [click to continue…]

When I asked my mom Vergilia whom she was grateful for in the momentous time when she, her 3 siblings, and parents arrived in the United States from Japan just after World War 2, this is the story that emerged. [click to continue…]

Karen Adair is a lively and talented designer I met through a lively and talented marketing expert (sense a theme?!). She helps local wineries and other businesses raise their stature through design. Clearly not one to let moss grow under her feet, I thought she’d have a fun and interesting story.

Karen asked me to “order something without raisins!” Knowing she needed to move along quickly, we jumped right in over a muffin and latte …

What does a “day in the life” of Karen Adair and DG Creative look like?

A day in the life is meeting with clients, and managing, designing, and producing the projects. Every day has projects and meetings scheduled on the calendar with a particular flow. My day always starts with emails. Then I have to reprioritize — it’s never what I expect it to be. We’re really responsive. We don’t like clients to have to wait too long when they request something.

Know that wisdom about a picture saying more than 1,000 words? It’s true. There’s nothing like good visuals to complement words or to brand an entity.

ImaginePod uses photography, hand drawing, and digital image smithing to tell a story visually. People get the idea more quickly when they can see what you’re talking about. It’s not rocket science but it’s super effective. Do it!

One year ago today, my father Henry Dakin died at age 73. He had lived a very productive life, helping organizations promote themselves right to the very end.

A video or digital story is a great way to pull together photos and voices in celebration. This story gives a view into our family albums back to about 1939. After brushing up my skills by creating a video for Young Women Social Entrepreneurs, [click to continue…]

Social media strategist Beth Kanter loves this presentation and says, “This is one of the best presentations I’ve seen about successful social media practice from the awesome Carie Lewis.” Carie shares her experiences from her role engaging supporters as Director of Emerging Media at the Humane Society of the United States.

With Tumblr you can use GoogleAnalytics to watch your audience and which posts are most enjoyed. Use the tags to guide your audience and to get your posts into the search engines. Ask questions on other Tumblr accounts to get followers and attention.

Sit back and enjoy Seth Godin’s TED talk, “The Tribes We Lead,” as he introduces the fall of mass marketing and the revival of social interaction. Tribes = the building of community around shared ideas and values. Tribes offer ordinary people the opportunity to lead and instigate change. After you’ve checked this video out consider reading or listening to his book, Tribes.